Rossi Refuses New Test Offer, Confirms First Customer as Military Agency Which has Ordered 13 More Units

The Italian magazine Focus has published some public correspondence between Andrea Rossi and Dr. Francesco Celani, First Researcher at the Italian National Laboratory of Frascati. Celani has requested that Rossi provide an E-Cat which he, Celani, would put through rigorous and carefully measured week long or more test. Following the testing a scientific report would immediately be written and published.

Rossi politely declined the offer, stating, as he has many times before, that he sees no need to do another public test.”Those who have been following the developments of our adventure for months, like Focus’readers have, know that the critical moment has finally gone: our 1megawat pilot plant persuaded the investors.Soon it will be operative in a real industrial context, and as well as producing thermal power, it will be subject of studies itself. For all the reasons below, i don’t see any point in having another E-Cat test, that, in my opinion, doesn’t need to prove “weather” it works or not.”

It was also confirmed by Rossi that the customer who purchased the first plant was from a military organization, and that this same customer has ordered more units. Rossi said “It will be a 13 MW thermal power plant, consisting of 13 Energy 1MW catalyzers like the one in operation in Bologna on October 28″

Rossi also explains that the work he will be doing with the University of Bologna will go beyond merely testing the E-Cat units — they will be involved in studying the nuclear reaction phenomena with a view to coming to a solid theoretical understanding of what is happening. He said they may even arrive at a new theoretical model.

He writes, “Once we understand the phenomenon, we could discover new, unexpected ways to exploit it, as i believe it will happen. Today, it’s very hard for everyone to imagine an enegetic scenario where fossil fuels are no longer needed, still… i firmly believe that day isn’t that far away.”

This refusal of a test made by the Italian National Laboratory of Frascati can only mean that it’s a scam.

If such a test was a success, Rossi would receive thousands of orders for new 1 MW plants. The refusal is the proof that he doesn’t have anything…

enoughAlready911

Rossi could be instantly worth $50 Billion if he had an open test that lasted for 3-4 days with a unit isolated but not internally inspected.

Have a demonstration broadcast worldwide on the web and take orders with units delivered in the order in which the money was received.

If it works he would have so much money coming in that he could build enormous factories/partnerships to build these devices. He would in 30 days be “Bill Gates” wealthy.

So if its about earning profit he is doing all wrong. Which makes me think it doesn’t really work.

I can’t imagine that he hasn’t heard this line o thinking before.

Heck, if his unit does what he says it does and I can power my house for $20/yr I would send him $15,000 tomorrow even if I have to wait 6 months to get it.

Now multiply that by 20% of the world who would be early adopters. Then within a year another 70% of the world who saw it in action.

So either the guy is an idiot, a fraud or too small in his thinking to properly run the enterprise which will help save the world. Take your pick.

Josh

Pretty much dead on. I don’t understand the fraud angle (though not ruling it out), so I’m betting that he thinks he has something interesting, but it is no where near stable enough for massive production.

hempenearth

Apologies in advance if I am seen as interfering, meddling or sticking my nose in where it is not wanted but if I am not mistaken we know that:
1. the customer is a U.S. customer
2. the customer is a military customer

If the defence minister has oversight of military spending then he should be able to announce who the customer is and what applications the E-Cat is being used for. He should be accountable for the spending of taxpayers money so perhaps some pressure could be put on him to release some information.

Rossi said no more demos because “the critical moment has finally gone: our 1megawat pilot plant persuaded the investors.”

Interesting. He doesn’t say it persuaded “customers”. It persuaded “investors”.

People have asked why he might make up a fake customer. What reason would there be to do that? This would be one reason.

jnt

It may not be patentable, or indeed it may have already been patented under a classified patent. His course of action makes sense.

Waiting

In the comments here, people have often said that Rossi has no investors. This quote shows he does. This is the first time I’ve heard him say he has investors. That’s good to remember.

People have also reasoned that the secret customer must be real, because there’s no benefit to Rossi for creating a fake customer. Because a fake customer couldn’t actually pay for the e-cat. But this quote shows that Rossi did benefit from the demo, whether the customer was real or not. He said the demo convinced the investors, so there’s no need to have any more demos.

That doesn’t mean the customer is fake. It just means there was a strong motivation to make up a fake customer.

Mike Johnson

What I don’t understand is…why wouldn’t Leonardo Corp (Rossi et. al) not simply be interested in supplying power to the electrical grid rather than supplying units? I mean it’s far easier, more profitable, and there is less risk of having your invention copied.

But assuming it works, Rossi has to dodge plenty of hostile companies/governments with existing energy interests to protect. So it might be in Rossi’s best interest at the moment to be seen as a bit of a kook and a fraud (and thus be ignored by the mainstream) while he matures the technology and grows his business to the point that one or two paid off regulators can’t shut him down. That means concentrating on production, not changing minds.

Dave

The fact that Rossi turned down Dr. Celani’s offer to test an E-Cat and report the results is just more evidence that this is a scam. I know if I had the most important and lucrative invention in the history of the world I’d be doing everything I could to get reputable sources to verify to the world that it actually works. Once the world was convinced that it works Rossi could get a patent on it and get billions of dollars in government grants to develop his E-Cat technology. Getting away from fossil fuels is something every Western nation wants, so you know they’d throw money at Rossi to get it into large-scale production ASAP.

Steve Robb

He only needs to convince enough customers to allow him to increase his production at some manageable rate. He has already convinced all the people he needs to. Perhaps there are another small percentage that would be impressed by another test. Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world have not yet heard of this but will when real production ramps up. They will adopt the technology just as they adopted electricity without question and little or no understanding.

Dave

Steve, another test? Rossi hasn’t done any real tests so far. It’s all silly desktop demonstrations using his own instruments that aren’t even long enough to rule out a chemical source for the heat output. In fact, his own demonstrations highly suggest that the E-Cat doesn’t work. There wasn’t enough steam coming out of the E-Cat to account for the amount of water he claimed he turned into dry steam. The room should have looked like a sauna.

Hal Ade

Re: “just more evidence that this is a scam”

WRONG!!!!!

Celani wants a “freebie” from Rossi, and neither Rossi nor anyone else, for that matter, is morally obliged to grant Celani a free device, costing Rossi and company millions of Euros.

“doing everything I could” does not mean spending funds one doesn’t yet have to provide a free device for testing, or any other purpose. MAybe later, when Rossi et al. are rich enough.

Dave

Hal, a single E-Cat unit costs very little. That’s all he needs to provide to an independent researcher. He doesn’t need to give them a 1MW plant. If I were Rossi I’d be literally *begging* scientists to test my E-Cat units, unless I knew the E-Cat doesn’t really work.

Tony

Unless the central piece of your device, the catalyst, wasn’t patentable and as soon as you let someone analyze the catalyst they would be able to reproduce it, gutting your profits.

Dave

Tony, no. All Rossi has to do is let researches test his E-Cat unit as a “black box.” They wouldn’t be allowed to open it, so they wouldn’t find out anything about how it works. They’d just run it using their own instruments for measuring the electrical input and heat output, and run it long enough to discount any chemical source for the heat output. That would let them verify that the E-Cat really works without giving away any secrets. The fact that Rossi refuses to do this is all the evidence I need to assume it’s a hoax until proven otherwise.

Pipmon

With Defkalion (and apparently also Piantelli) hot on his heels, Rossi is indeed on a short time scale to rake in as much money as he can before he’s got competitors. The physics of the thing is not patentable, and while the particular catalyst may be (whatever it is), its likely that various other approaches could be used. So he can’t effectively protect his device except by limiting access to the minimum of people, and paying ones at that!

Jim

Rossi doesn’t have a patent yet that substantially protects his interests in most of the world. The only protection he has is keep secret the proprietary method for the catalyzer. Given these constraints, partnering with others to build has a real risk, in that he must depend on contractual and operational controls to protect himself.

He seems to be starting small, controlling the build, but generating funds that will allow him to develop the above required controls. Simultaneously, in parallel, he is developing a sound scientific method that explains how this works with the University of Bologna. This may allow him to overcome the US Patent Office, and other nations prohibition on granting him a patent as they currently classify his patent applications as “cold fusion” which prohibits granting a patent. With success on the University side, he will have a scientific method that explains “the magic.”

With that, he can then get patent protection, and he then has a much greater ability to scale up and out.

daniel maris

I was reading up on steam cars recently – very interesting how from about 1900-1910 they were certainly leading over petrol/gas cars. From about 1915 I think it was they brought in condenser, so greatly reducing the amount of water required on board.

I wonder with modern technology whether an E cat couldn’t power condensing of water vapour out of the air. That could further reduce the need to carry water on board.

Morse

This is a very exciting story, if it’s true or not, the future will tell.
Maybe Rossi is selling these devices because other competitors (Defkalion) are also building a machine which is more optimized than Rossi’s. He is afraid a better model will hit the market and become successful:-)

Rich Barker

I suspect that regulatory agencies here in the US will be a major obstacle, perhaps delaying availability for years. It sounds like it is safe, but scientific facts often do not sway public opinion. The “nuclear bogey man” is a powerful fore here.

We need a public figure in the US to push this green technology to get public acceptance. I just saw the actor Ed Begley Jr. on television, saying he had been in the green movement since 1970.

It would be difficult to get past the person screening his mail, but if all of us email him maybe he would listen. Does anyone have a way to get him interested?

admin

A well-known advocate for this technology could make a huge difference. Wonder if the OWS movement would get behind this tech if they knew about it.

Hal Ade

The OCCUPY movements throughout the First (mostly white) World are “Leftish”, and they tend to pooh-pooh anything which indicates a potential abundance of cheap energy. They’ve oriented themselves to costly energy from wind, solar etc. I’m one of the mildly-Left White “OCCUPIERS” in Ottawa, ON, Cda and I know how they think.

There are non-scientifically-trained individuals who are interested, when they chat with me in private, but they keep their “tech” thoughts to themselves in General Assemblies and discussion fora. Convincing the “blindered” OCCUPIERS is a tough row to hoe.

admin

Interesting comment, Hal.
I would think that cheap abundant energy would be very attractive to people who want to be free from the domination of big fossil fuel corporations. Abundant energy should also go a long way to improve standards of living for the poorer segments of society — which seems to be an OWS goal.

AMTR

It this is not a scam, then rising oil prices and people going cold will be more than sufficient to create the political pressure to remove government obstacles.

Cliff Bradley

Think of one of the main uses that this technology could be used for in the military. Most naval ships use diesel or oil, even submarines. If this technology can be put into a submarine, for example, then all the world can convert their cheap non-nuclear submarines to run for 6 months at a time under water.

Think of the research ships and submarines that rely on battery power and can only stay underwater for a few hours. This is a game changer for them too.

Think of the research outposts in Antarctica. With this technology they would be able to have much smaller supply drops.

There are lots of military uses that would lead them to be early adopters.

The first new commercial units will begin to be delivered in a few months. If it is a scam, then they won’t work and Rossi will be exposed. There is no possibility of me getting one for my home heating before 2013 anyway, so what do I care? I’ve been watching this adventure for about a year now and I can wait for the next chapter.

I do think that the reaction of Rossi to the offer of Celani is simply irrational. From my point of view there are three possibe explanations left:

First: The E-Cat is valid, the secret customers exist. Then the manner how Rossi proceeds is irrational, not to say paranoid.

Second: The E-Cat works but not in the expected way, maybe produces significantly less output than expected. There are no customers at all and Rossi just needs time to improve the thing.

Third: Its all a big scam. Would be the worst of the three and I do hope its not in this way.

Personally I think the first point is most likely, specially because of the testemony of reputated physicists like Levi, Focardi, Stemenos, Kullander etc.

philippefx

Four : The E-Cat works and Rossi don’t care about people who need to believe or not to believe.

Josh

Like customers?

bob

Dude – I agree the first point is most likely, but I don’t think how Rossi is proceeding is paranoid or irrational.

Why would Rossi build a free e-cat for Celani to test, when he has a PAYING customer ordering as many of the things that he can produce?

I do wish he would come clean about who the customer is though…

Cliff Bradley

Irrational? Really. Rossi is building 1MW plants as fast as he can for paying customers. Undoubtedly, they will have people testing everything thoroughly.

Why should Rossi have another public test. The reason for the other public tests was to get customers, not satisfy people’s curiosity.

I agree that there is a fourth option. It works and Rossi is making them as fast as he can, and he doesn’t give a rip about people’s curiosity.

Josh

If he’s really “building 1MW plants as fast as he can,” then he’s irrational for not partnering with someone who can build more faster. He’d make money faster, and make an impact on humanity faster.

Blah

I agree. By not licensing he leaves himself open to competitors duplicating the process and leaving him in the dust. Knowing that a process that works makes it much easier to justify a large research effort. Once discovered, large manufacturers will drive him out of business with their economies of scale.

Ron

This is starting to sound like an episode of “Lost”. JJ would be proud.

Curious if anyone else has done a wiki search on Sergio Focardi. The guy has been working on this for a long time. Checkout the Springer Link page in the “Further readings” chapter.
After listening to Focardi’s Ted-talk he convinced me he’s discovered something. I’d so love to see a radiation detector in one of Rossi’s tests and have it jump when they poked a hole in the reactor shielding.
It’s hard to tell what Rossi’s up to. If it were me, I’d be going for the Nobel prize(s) and my name in the history books, right next to Leonardo DaVinci and Enrico Fermi. The fact that Forcadi’s a professor at the University of Bologna (founded in 1088) gives him some credibility.